fibchem

It would have been nice if BVM would have contacted each King Cat buyer. I lost my king cat and everything onboard September 18 while doing a flight demo for a club picnic. I don't spend much time on the Internet so I did not see the addendum. I even seen a very small crack before the last flight, it seemed cosmetic, so we twisted and pulled and everything seemed OK, so we flew. The last thing we saw after about 5 minutes of flight was a slightly declining pass with the elevators in the full up position. I just ran out of stick and watched it plow into the trees at about 170mph. If BVM would have contacted me about boom weaknesses, I would never have taken that last flight. All I got from BVM is !QUOT!sorry to hear about your loss!QUOT!.

Nick

n.carrozza

My Feedback: (3)

Sorry Guys. The last post was sent by me Nick C.. My friend last used my computer and left his name and password in RC Universe.

Nick

David Gladwin

Second last post proves my point.
Regards,
David Gladwin

taprackflip

My Feedback: (29)

I am Happy to see I'm not just one of two people who have had problems with my booms. I had to replace both my booms after one cracked on landing and took out the second one. I purchase two new booms from BVM in June and after 3 flights and three perfect landings, was loading the KC in the truck when I heard the right boom pop, as I was bunging the plane to the floor of the truck. I sent the broken boom to BVM for evaluation. That what was back in July and I am still awaiting replacement. My understanding is that the booms have gone under some serious redesigning to provide reinforcement behind the anti rotational point.

While I have seen some complaints about the way BVM has handled this situation, I must tell you that I am impressed in the way the situation was dealt with. I received a call from BV himself to discuss what had happened. I had told BV that the reason I had purchased the KC was because of Jason Somes and Mike Lederer. I had flown the KC aft Florida jets with Jason and was immediately sold. I purchase the KC at the BVM booth during the event. Afterward, I flew Mikes 's KC, forty or fifty times. Mike never babied his KC and flew it to the limits through its entire life over 400 flights unfortunately, it died during a midair. I was truly surprised on how easily my booms broke!


I wonder if the booms became an issue during the manufacturing process, as I have seen earlier models take much abuse and have had no boom problems and the later models seem to have some of the problems described above. I have seen several KC's take belly landings, pancake into the runway, and make rough landings only to break flex plates. With the exception of Lerderer's plane, all still are flying.

I think that BVM has exercised great responsibility in offering the Carbon Fiber addendum to ALL KC owners. As a matter of fact, when talking to Patty to discuss the the status on my booms, she indicate the new installation kit was available to all KC owners. I have mentioned a friend that had two KC's that he purchased from private parties and could she mail them to him. Two days later he received the reinforcements. Later when flying at the field , he mentioned that he had just receive them and had not even order them from BVM! That's Customer service!

BVM could have ignored the issue and attributed the loss to several other reasons. I had an incident last year with another manufacturer which clearly admitted to a problem with one of there products, but failed to replace any of the lost components. Needless to say, I don't do business with them anymore. I guess that the best insurance would be to reinforce all the booms regardless of the manufacture date.

Thanks to all at BVM and I look forward to Flying My KC soon!